Nursing home abuse and neglect cause tens of thousands of deaths and injuries to vulnerable seniors every year. Nursing home abuse includes physical abuse, sexual abuse, and financial exploitation. Nursing home neglect happens when medical providers and nursing staff fail to provide the proper care or medical treatment that a resident requires. Neglect and abuse can result in debilitating, costly injuries, including bed sores, fall injuries, and pelvic fractures. In some cases, these injuries result in a resident’s wrongful death.

If one of your elderly family members was injured or killed at a nursing home or other long-term care facility for seniors, or if you even suspect that abuse or neglect may be occurring, you should contact a nursing home abuse lawyer immediately to review your family’s legal options. Depending on the situation, you may wish to take action against the nursing home.

One way to protect your loved one is to file a complaint with the state department of health or nursing home ombudsman.

In addition to reporting an injury to nursing home regulators, you may also wish to bring a civil action to get compensation for your loved ones harms and losses. If your family member or loved one was injured due to a negligent nursing home, we encourage you to contact our law offices. Our nursing home neglect attorneys offer a free legal consultation where you can discuss your legal options.

How to File a Complaint Against a Nursing Home

If you’re concerned about neglect, abuse, or financial exploitation at a nursing home, you are urged to report the suspected violation to your state’s department of health as soon as possible. This will trigger an inspection of the facility. The process of reporting a nursing home is also called filing a nursing home complaint. The following section explains how to report a nursing home in your state.

How to Report a Nursing Home for Neglect

The specific steps for reporting a nursing home violation differ in each state. Generally speaking, complaints are either made verbally over the phone, or are filed using online submission forms. These forms are available on the website of whichever department or division reviews elder abuse reports in that particular state. This agency is usually called the Department of Health, the Department of Health Services, the Division of Health Care Services, or a similar name.

Below you will find an alphabetized list of contact information for the appropriate department or division in each state. You can use this information to report a nursing home to the state where the abuse or neglect occurred.

The contact information above is current as of April 2017, but is subject to change in the future. You can find current information for nursing home complaints in each state listed on the official Medicare website.

What is the Long-Term Care Ombudsmen Program?

In addition to reporting the facility to your state’s Department of Health or related department, you can also report the facility to your Ombudsman. For example, if you live in Pennsylvania, you could report the nursing home to both the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the Pennsylvania Department on Aging through its Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program.

The key functions of Ombudsmen Programs are to provide information and assist with nursing home complaints. Ombudsmen Programs are administered by the U.S. Administration on Aging (AoA), and are primarily run by volunteers who have been certified to handle nursing home complaints. In some states, like New Jersey, the Ombudsman Program is the first point of contact for filing a complaint against a nursing home.

Reasons to Sue a Nursing Home

Filing a complaint against a nursing home has several benefits. It draws attention to the facility, opens an investigation, and may result in the facility being fined if a violation was committed. Additionally, violation reports are published on Medicare’s nursing home database, which is accessible through Medicare Nursing Home Compare. In that regard, reports and investigations can ultimately make nursing homes safer for everyone by increasing transparency.

However, it’s important to reiterate that reporting a nursing home violation is not the same as suing a nursing home. If you are seeking compensation for personal injury or wrongful death of an elderly loved one, you should speak with a nursing home abuse attorney about getting legal help. It is in your best interests to avoid the sample personal injury complaint forms that are available for download from the internet, and to let an experienced lawyer represent you against the nursing home’s legal team.

It may be appropriate to sue a nursing home for any of the following reasons:

Bed sores and pressure ulcers which formed or were improperly treated

Nursing home fall that causes serious injury

Injuries and Infections caused by neglect

Sexual abuse

Wrongful death caused by nursing home neglect

Wrongful death caused by nursing home abuse

Nursing Home Abuse Lawyers for Seniors

Brent WieandÊis an advocate for senior citizens. We fight to ensure that nursing homes provide proper care and safe environments in which senior citizens can thrive. When the residents of nursing homes, assisted living facilities, residential care homes, or rehabilitation centers are abused or neglected by care workers, our attorneys can step in to advocate for justice and pursue compensation for their losses. To discuss a claim for personal injuries in a free legal consultation, contact our law offices.